1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner consumption calculator, an image forming apparatus, and a toner consumption calculation method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electrophotographic image forming apparatuses that perform exposure using light emitting diode arrays (LEDAs), techniques have been known that correct color shifts caused by skews and bows due to variations in chip arrangements of the LEDAs (e.g., refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-174571).
In the image forming apparatuses, techniques also have been known that calculate toner consumption taking into consideration an effect on a target pixel by light emitted to surrounding pixels of the target pixel (e.g., refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-078794). Such techniques can calculate the toner consumption with high accuracy.
The techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-174571 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-078794 need a large number of line memories, thereby increasing the number of built-in line memories and cost for the line memories.
Therefore, there is a need for a toner consumption calculator, an image forming apparatus, and a toner consumption calculation method that are capable of performing color shift correction and toner consumption calculation with high accuracy and at low cost.